Cooling devices are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,469. In the cooling device of U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,469, the cooling element is clamped in the carrier with a gasket positioned on the top plate of the cooling element to provide a seal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,119,462 discloses a water cooler having a thermoelectric cooling element for maintaining a supply of water at a reduced temperature level. The cooling element is clamped between two flanges of the housing, such that the warm side of the module is in direct contact with cooling liquid flowing through the cooling channel, thus enabling an efficient cooling proces, while the cold side of the module abuts against the base of a chiller probe that is in conductive thermal contact with the supply of water to be cooled.
A problem associated with the known devices is that the clamp construction may cause leakage due to thermal expansion and contraction of the cooling element. In addition, the tolerance for size aid shape of the thermoelectric element must be kept small, and the clamping force must be relatively high. In view of the above, only one cooling element can be used in each clamp construction. Further, due to their brittle structure, low cost cooling elements of semiconductor material sandwiched between ceramic plates of low size and shape tolerance cannot be used in mechanically demanding applications.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a cooling device in which the advantage of efficient cooling by direct contact of the cooling element with the cooling liquid is maintained, while the above problems are alleviated. In particular, it would be advantageous to provide a cooling device in which an array of standardized cooling elements of semiconductor material sandwiched between plates of ceramic material, each having low size and shape tolerance can be provided in a simple and elegant manner.